How could Adam have named all the animals in a single day?

How could Adam have named millions of different species on Day 6 if it was only
24 hours? This is a common objection to a straightforward view of Genesis 1.

One important point is that we cannot be dogmatic on the actual number of species
on Earth. Oxford University zoologist Robert May writes:

‘At the purely factual level, we do not know to within an order of magnitude
how many species of plants and animals we share the globe with: fewer than 2 million are currently classified, and estimates of the total number range from under 5 million to more than 50 million.’ [My emphasis]1

There are several factors, which may not be immediately obvious
to the casual reader, that need to be considered. Firstly, Adam did not have
to go out and round up or track any of these animals. Genesis 2:19 clearly
states that God brought the animals to Adam. Secondly, although many
objectors have claimed that the species Adam had to observe and name would have
numbered in the millions, the actual number would almost certainly have been only
a small fraction of this.

[it] could easily have been achieved in a few hours

Note that Scripture explicitly states that Adam named all the ‘livestock’
(Heb. behemah),the ‘birds of the air’
(Heb. oph hassamayim) and all the ‘beasts of
the field’ (Heb. chayyah hassadeh). There is no indication
that Adam named the fish in the sea, or any other marine organisms, nor any of the
insects, beetles or arachnids. In fact, of the two million known species, 98%
are invertebrates, which include a variety of animals from sponges, worms and jellyfish,
to mollusks and insects. The remaining 2% are vertebrates and number approximately
40,000 species.2 This number is further reduced
when the 25,000 marine vertebrates3 and four thousand
amphibians4 are discounted, since they clearly do not
fit into any of the categories of animals listed in Genesis 2:20.

In addition, assuming that speciation has been an on-going occurrence since Creation,
the eleven thousand vertebrate species in question would have most likely descended
from a much smaller number of proto-species. Each would be the ancestors
of animals in the group that taxonomists call a genus5
(or possibly the higher taxonomic order known as a family6)
and what the Genesis account calls a ‘kind’.7 Since many genera contain dozens,
even hundreds, of species, it is far more likely that Adam had to name only a couple
of thousand of these proto-species—a task which could easily have been achieved
in a few hours. (Assuming Adam had to name 2,500 proto-species (genera),
and he named a single proto-species every five seconds, it would have taken him
approximately three hours and forty-five minutes to complete the task if we include
a five-minute break every hour.)

It is important to note that God’s purpose in parading all the animals before
Adam was not merely so that he would give them names. It was also to reinforce
the fact that he was different in kind from the rest of creation, so that none of
these animals could ever serve as a physical, emotional, intellectual or spiritual
companion. So God made from Adam's rib a companion who was suitable (Genesis 2:21–24).

References

May, R.M., How many species are there on Earth? Science241:1441, 1988.

Woodmorappe, J, Noah’s Ark: A Feasibility Study,
ICR, El Cajon, CA, USA, 1996. This tabulates all the creatures on the Ark by
assuming that the kind corresponded to today’s genera. But this is to
be as generous to the sceptics as possible, and even then there would be only 16,000
animals on the Ark as obligate passengers.

Batten, D., Ligers and Wholphins? What next?Creation22(3):28–33, 2000. This points out several examples of fertile hybrids between members of different genera with a family. This means that they are really a single polytypic species, and supports identification of the kind with today’s families.

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